Rory McIlroy tried everything imaginable to prepare himself to win the Masters. He arrived early and late. Played a lot of practice rounds and none. He played the Par 3 contest and didn’t. He even tried hypnosis.
The results never materialized.
Last year, before his magical win at Augusta National, Rory McIlroy watched the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. He wasn’t necessarily watching it as a tool to help him finally win the green jacket, but it wound up paying dividends one week later as he battled Justin Rose while the sun set over the 2025 Masters.
McIlroy’s final round in 2025 started as a duel with Bryson DeChambeau, but became a battle with his own demons on the back nine. McIlroy held a five-shot lead at one point, but a double bogey on the par-5 13th brought the chasers back into the picture, with Rose becoming his chief competitor after the Englishman polished off a final-round 66 with a 20-foot birdie at the 18th. When McIlroy bogeyed the final hole, it set up a playoff with Rose.
Both players split the fairway on the first playoff hole. Rose then hit a piercing iron that nearly landed in the hole. The ball bounced next to the cup and stopped on top of the ridge running through the 18th green. McIlroy responded by sticking his approach shot to four feet. When he arrived at the green, McIlroy looked at his ball and found something familiar: He had already seen this putt one week before when ANWA winner Carla Bernat Escuder polished off her winning moment at Augusta National.
McIlroy detailed this moment in the recently released “Every Hole of the 2025 Masters” video, which Augusta National released on Friday.
“So even before Justin hit his putt, I marked my ball and, I watched a lot of the final round of the ANWA,” McIlroy said. “You know, the Spanish girl that ended up winning, she had a very similar putt to win. I remember watching it and it didn’t really do a whole lot. If anything, it might have moved a touch to the right. So it felt like I had seen that putt before. Once Justin’s putt didn’t go in, all you can do is try to stay in the moment as much as you can. I put my ball down, I go through my routine and I just said to myself that it’s inside left and make a good stroke.”
Bernat Escuder arrived at the 18th hole at Augusta National with a one-shot lead over Asterisk Talley. Bernat Escuder started the day one shot behind Lottie Woad and Kiara Romero, but quickly grabbed the lead and held a four-shot lead on the back nine at one point. But that lead shrank to one over the then-16-year-old Talley when Bernat Escuder made her second bogey of the day at the par-4 17th. She needed a par on the 18th hole to avoid going to a playoff, as McIlroy would one week later.
Bernat Escuder hit a big drive down the 18th and then eventually left herself a four-foot, downhill putt to get in the house at 12-under and clinch the trophy. She calmly rolled it in to become the fifth Spaniard to win at Augusta National, joining Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal, Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm.
“It’s hard to describe with words, but I was just so happy and relieved that I made the putt because I saw on a scoreboard there was one girl that was just one shot behind me,” Bernat Escuder said after her win of the putt on 18. “So I was like, you need to make this. So yeah, happy.”
Seven days later, McIlroy arrived at the 18th needing a par to avoid a playoff with Rose. But his approach shot landed in the bunker, and he missed the par putt to delay his historic moment.
But after two immaculate swings in the playoff, McIlroy was left with just a four-foot, downhill putt to beat Rose and vanquish his Augusta National demons. He had seen Bernat Escuder pour a similar putt in the heart one week earlier, and lined his winning putt up confident that he knew the line to his dreams.
“I think you dream of these things,” McIlroy said in the Masters’ new video. “You never really know how it’s going to hit you or how it’s going to feel. I feel so lucky. Not a lot of people get to experience that in life.”
